Vote no on TIF

April 18, 2007

To the editor - For two months the American News has bragged about the merits of voting yes on the beef plant TIF. The April 8 paper had three pages. Why not expend some newsprint to the other side of the story? How from the beginning they told us how they were going to bring foreign laborers in to do the manual labor jobs. These foreign workers will have families. Are there enough foreign language teachers in our schools (K-12) to translate numerous languages well enough to teach English to all the students, and who - do ask - is going to foot the bill for this extra education and educators? We, the taxpayers and property owners of Brown County are going to pay, and pay and pay. How many of our police, court workers, judges, health care workers, ambulance drivers, EMTs, firemen, clerks in stores, etc. can translate and speak foreign languages fluently? We women earned the right to vote in 1922. So use it. Don't wait until the chaos is so bad, and the stench of butchering 1,500 head of cattle per day begins and there is nothing we can do about it. Our ancestors were foreigners, but they had to quickly learn how to communicate - on their own - in order to work and defend themselves. Vote no on the beef plant TIF. Doreen Holmquist Aberdeen